If the word on the street is correct they're about to compromise, making only 30 billion in budget cuts, which amounts to fragment of a drop in a bucket in view of our 15 trillion or so claimed deficit.

It appears the Repubs are terrified of the Dems rope a dope strategy that will hold THEM accountable for "shutting down government".

MSNBC pundits are "praying" there is no deal so they can demogague the cans on this and they think they can do to Boehner what they did to Newt. And of course the rest of the MSM is backing them.

I don't know if this strategy would work this time around, but I suspect as soon as some people fear they won't be getting their gov. checks, etc. the repubs will take a nosedive in ratings. Remember it was said that 60% of people get more out of government than they pay in.

s budget negotiations enter a final stage in an effort to prevent an April 8 government shutdown, Republicans are retreating faster than the Libyan rebels. The final result is likely to be very bad news for any serious attempt to control government spending.

A little background: This year the federal government will spend about $3.8 trillion. We will run a deficit of $1.65 trillion, and later this month we will run up against the statutory limit of $14.3 trillion in debt. And that's only the "on the books" debt. If one counts the unfunded liabilities of entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, our real debt runs in excess of $119.5 trillion.

In the face of this looming tide of red ink, Republican leaders in the House originally proposed $38 billion in cuts. Faced with a rebellion by tea partyÂ backed budget hawks, they upped their proposed cuts to $61 billion. That amounts to roughly 1.5 percent of this year's budget. In fact it's less than 3.5 percent of this year's deficit. Last month alone, the federal government borrowed nearly four times as much as the Republicans have proposed cutting for the entire year.

Meager as they are, the proposed cuts were too much for the Democrats in Congress. They warned that cutting spending by 1.5 percent would result in wholesale carnage. It was, in the endlessly repeated phrase of Sen. Chuck Schumer, DÂ N.Y., "extreme."

Certainly one can quibble with the specific cuts that Republicans have proposed. Many of them have as much to do with political score settling as with sound budgeting. But rather than propose their own cuts, Democrats simply said "no."

As a result we now find ourselves, two temporary stopgap spending measures later, facing the prospect of a government shutdown next Friday.

This apparently terrifies the Republican leadership. They are haunted by memories of 1995, when President Bill Clinton pilloried them for shutting down the government. As a result, according to news reports, they appear willing to settle for roughly $30 billion to $35 billion in budget cuts, slightly less than the GOP leadership first proposed back in January. That's a whopping threeÂ quarters of a percent of this year's budget. To put that in perspective, if your household budget was $2,000, you would have to cut it by $15, roughly the price of a movie ticket and popcorn. But even this is a bit misleading, because roughly $16 billion of those cuts was already passed as part of the stopgap measures. Thus, we are talking about additional cuts of less than $20 billion.

Worse, Republicans appear ready to remove a number of policy provisions, called "riders," from the bill. Those riders would have, for instance, prevented funding for the implementation of Obamacare. Defunding the health care bill was supposed to be one of the Republicans' top priorities. Now, it looks like they've folded.

This, despite the fact that the public is largely on their side. According to the latest Rasmussen poll, likely voters prefer a government shutdown over maintaining current levels of spending by a 57Â 31 percent margin. If you can't stick it out with the public on your side by 26 points, how will Republicans ever make the type of really tough cuts necessary to actually balance the budget?

The Republican surrender is much bigger than just one budget bill. One of the first rules of negotiating is never to threaten to do something unless you are prepared to do it. If you're opponent calls your bluff and you fail to follow through, you've lost all credibility. Think of negotiating a raise at work. You can't threaten to quit unless you are really prepared to quit, because if the boss calls your bluff, you have lost all future leverage. That's the position Republicans find themselves in now.

In the next few weeks, Congress will have to tackle an increase in the debt ceiling, as well as next year's budget. Republicans will undoubtedly threaten all sorts of things unless Democrats agree to control spending. Pass a balanced budget amendment or we won't raise the debt ceiling. Agree to a 2012 budget that cuts spending or the government will shut down this fall.

But Democrats now know it's all a bluff. All they have to do is keep saying "no," and eventually the Republicans will crumble. All the rest is just play acting.

In the meantime, our tide of red ink will just keep getting deeper, and the coming economic crisis will creep closer. And when the day of reckoning comes, Republican cowardice will be every bit as much to blame as Democratic stubbornness.

I don't defend the Republicans only that they as well as Dems must have polling which shows the former will get the blame for a shutdown and it is politically too dangerous. The Dems are frothing at the mouth to have the chance to demagoue them over this.

The Rebuplicans still do not have good answers to Democrats strategy of "your cutting spending on the backs of the poor and middle class".

The GOP Stupids Step Out It’s so much easier being a loser — just ask John McCain

I can’t tell you how excited I am at the news that good ol’ SpongeBob is throwing his and Callista’s Squarepants into the ring for the Stupid Party’s 2012 designated-loser/presidential-candidate sweepstakes, thus joining an already crowded field of unelectables, has-beens, never-wases, never-will-be’s, who’s-he mystery men, libertarians, radical libertarians, pizza guys, former governors of Minnesota, and just plain nut jobs. Way to go, GOP! No wonder we call you the Stupid Party. You’ve earned it.

Not that Mr. Newt isn’t brilliant. He could probably whip us all on Jeopardy, especially if they asked real questions about history and stuff, instead of about Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga. But he was born in 1943, which makes him six years older than my dad, the sainted “Che” Kahane, and there’s no way I’m voting for my old man for president.

I mean, here you have His Serene Majesty the Emperor Barack Hussein Obama II, Lord of the Flies, Keeper of the Hoops, Master of the Greens, Bringer of Kinetic Military Action, Vacationer-in-Chief, Slayer of Osama, and Protector of the Holy Cities of Honolulu and Chicago, who — despite his impressive array of titles — is probably the most beatable incumbent since George H. W. Bush, and you won’t even try to beat him? Good Gaia, people, where’s the politically correct fighting spirit that negotiated a peace-process settlement with the West? The government program that subsidized the wagon trains? Libby Custer’s grief counselors after the Little Big Horn? Your intrepid forebears would be ashamed of you. Ours, not so much, since they were in therapy at the time.

Like almost none of you, I was riveted by the first-in-the-Fox-nation Republican debate the other day, and thrilled to make the acquaintance of a bunch of guys I’ll probably never lay eyes on again. While personally I’m glad that you wingnuts now officially favor legalizing heroin and sending women who exercise their semi-divine right to choose to Gitmo for enhanced interrogation, I don’t think this is a winning combo, blue-state-wise. If you’re going to beat Li’l Barry, you’re going to need to take off the gloves and bring out the A-team, not the Expendables.

Now, before you start getting all wee-wee’d up about the likes of Mr. Newt, Mitt, Michele, Sarah, Rudy, Mitch, and some Chinese guy named Huntsman, take a deep breath, settle back on the Barcalounger, and call your Obamacare state-approved caregiver — you’re having a hallucination. None of these folks is going to be president.

Newt has had as many wives as Osama, while Massachusetts Mitt is a hologram, an astral projection brought on by advanced medical technology that can produce the simulacrum of a candidate without, you know, the actual substance. Sarah will soon be best known as “Herself” on Bristol Palin’s new reality show. Michele still needs a map to find Lexington and Concord, and anyway shouldn’t she be at home with her 10,000 kids? Now that Obama’s killed Osama, Rudy seems like Encino Man, and I’m still not clear on who the Chinese guy is, except that we really, really want you to nominate him.

Which brings us to Mitch Daniels.

Don’t get me wrong — just like some of you, I’m jazzed about Mitch. Who wouldn’t be? Colorless, diffident, weird, a homunculus with hair that former frontrunner Donald Trump probably secretly envies since there’s so little of it, Daniels is the perfect puss of the Republican party in this year of our Common Era, 2011. Let’s celebrate his diverse qualifications:

● He’s from Indiana, a state with as politically incorrect a name as can be imagined. I mean, why don’t they just call it Redskinland and be done with it? Indiana is like Delaware writ a tiny bit larger, one of those states you couldn’t pick out of a police lineup if it mugged you and got arrested at the scene by Ohio and Illinois. Half of it’s a suburb of Obama, Tony Rezko, and Bill Ayers’s neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, for crying out loud. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

● He’s basically an accountant. Nothing gets the political juices flowing and the passions boiling like a green-eyeshade guy solemnly warning the nation that a big hangover’s coming while the band’s still playing, the girls are dancing in their skivvies on the bar, and nobody’s called the cops yet. Sure, the teabaggers are all het up about the deficit and whatnot, but the rest of us love our entitlements and won’t hear a word against them. When one in seven of our fellow citizens is on food stamps, and half the population contributes a grand total of whiz-all in federal income taxes, we don’t call that a bug, we call it a feature! Free stuff for everybody, now and forever — that’s our winning campaign slogan, and if you don’t like it, try to come up with a better one.

I know that some of you are sitting around waiting for a deus ex machina to descend from the sky and start singing a castrati aria. As you lie in bed hugging your pillow and ogling that dreamboat Glenn Beck at two in the morning, you start to fantasize about Mr. Right . . . and then a tall, dark, fat, and handsome Chris Christie emerges from the shadows like Fabio on the cover of a bodice-ripper and sweeps you off your feet, or your bum, or whatever, and into the perfumed night . . .

Well, let me let you in on a little secret — your beautiful dream is our worst nightmare. Except that we don’t see Christie as Fabio, we see him as another Italian, namely Tony Soprano. Unlike Mitt, Mitch, and the Diana-figure from The Shanghai Gesture, Chris Christie Superstar knows how to bring it; he would take the fight to Barry in a debate like Tony beating the bejesus out of the bartender at the Bada Bing club only, you know, with words and Pine Barren ’tude. Talk about a cheer moment — even those of us on the left who’ve had to swallow our formerly principled opposition to Gitmo, waterboarding, rendition, Special Ops, and, well, assassination in the interests of national solidarity might feel a thrill or two.

But the Fat Man says he ain’t running, nohow, no way. And I can respect that: When the Boss is one of your subjects, who wouldn’t want to be King of the Boardwalk? Nucky Johnson’s got nothing on Chris. Still, can you imagine a Christie/Allen West ticket — two cans of whup-ass in a one-can cubicle. Even Hillary ’12! couldn’t stand up to that.

So what are you poor slobs going to do? Who’s going to be the tomato can offering sham opposition to His Highness’s media-ordained second term in exchange for face-time emoluments down the line? Who’s going to be the designated patsy in the next Obama hagiography by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann? Who’s going to want to see his or her reputation trashed, the family dragged through the mud, the appearances on Morning Joe and Meet the Press at least temporarily halted? Whom will you find to cause Mika Brzezinski to sigh and roll her eyes prettily at the very mention of the unholy name? In short, who’s going to be the palooka?

Luckily, you’ve already got him, a candidate who’s tanned, rested, tested, and ready to lose. A man who’s seen both sides now, who’s experienced the E-ticket ride from the heights of media adulation to the depths of ignominious and disgraceful defeat and up again. A hero for our times, who’s fought back from the electoral disaster of 2008 to resume his rightful place among the Talking Heads Elect. The man to whom you owe absolutely nothing for your transient victories in the midterms. The man who, more than anybody else, gave us the glorious reign of the Emperor Hussein.

The man who never saw an aisle he didn’t want to reach across, even if he has to regenerate a new limb or two every few weeks. The fighter pilot with the common touch, who has so many houses, thanks to his rich second wife, that he can’t remember how many there are. A man of peace who never met a war he didn’t want to start, especially if we can bomb the bastards into submission without getting shot down. A man of such political bravery that he’s willing to attack his own side wherever and whenever it’s expedient. A man who takes a licking, likes it, and keeps on licking.

Ladies and gentlemen and Republicans, I give you John McCain.

Go ahead. You know you want to. It’s so much easier on all of us this way.

— As a Hollywood insider, David Kahane remains scrupulously nonpartisan in his politics: He votes for liberals and Democrats alike. You can sign on to DAVEPAC ’12 by writing to him at kahanenro@gmail.com or by abjectly begging him to be your illusory “friend” on Facebook, just as long as you shell out for your personal copy of Rules for Radical Conservatives. Proof of purchase required. Hey — it’s still a capitalist country, for the nonce.

Without any doubt the Republicans really should start looking for another House majority leader.When you see the MSM state something like this:

"Boehner was praised for his early efforts to strike a major deal with the Obama" then Republicans should know its time for him to be replaced. This guy Boehner is absolutely the worst Republican house leader in memory:

***Cantor-Boehner Rivalry, Loafers Hold Up a Debt Deal

By Connor Simpson | The Atlantic Wire – 2 hrs 50 mins agotweet0EmailPrintA long rumored rivalry between the two top Republicans seems to be causing problems at the negotiating table while the president tries to hammer out a debt reduction deal before the August 2 deadline. Speaker of the House John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor are on opposing sides of the idealogical coin when it comes to debt reduction, and sartorial choices, reports the Los Angeles Times' Lisa Mascaro and Kathleen Hennessey.

Related: GOP Intensifies Demands for Votes to Raise the Debt Ceiling

Boehner was praised for his early efforts to strike a major deal with the Obama administration that would trim spending from social programs like Medicare and Social Security, but would also close tax loopholes for upperclass Americans. Cantor has hardly swayed from party lines during the negotiation process, favoring a mid-range deal more popular with the rest of "rank-and-file" Republicans. Mascaro and Hennessey describe Boehner as older, wiser and with an "old school cool." Cantor is young, scrappy and has some, "aspirations to occupy the No. 1 spot someday," meaning Boehner's job as Speaker of the house. Also, apparently, Boehner, "mocks Cantor's Italian loafers."

Related: Debt Talks Stall on Sunday

"If there's a popularity contest right now, Cantor wins it," one aide told the Times. "I don't think Boehner would want to serve in a foxhole anytime with Eric Cantor," said another.

I don't think they are winning over any independents or any new people to the Republican party. And they are certainly not winning the confidence of the tea partiers or stricter conservatives. Of course I am an armchair expert.

Mitch McConnell just concluded a press conference declaring his intentionsto have the Senate Republicans engage in a historic capitulation. So fearfulof being blamed for a default, McConnell is proposing a compromise that letsBarack Obama raise the debt ceiling without making any spending cuts at all.

McConnell’s idea is to make the debt ceilingautomatic<http://content.eaglepub.com/?darXZAYpvopp8oUOQD0-lYgasuWsASgRd&http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/271695/mcconnells-contingency-plan-rich-lowry>*unless Congress, by a 2/3 vote* blocks the increase. Oh yes, he put a salveon it by dressing it up in tough talk that, to quote the *Wall StreetJournal*, “[a] ‘eal solution’ to U.S. fiscal problems isn’t possible as longas President Barack Obama remains in office.” So since no “real solution” ispossible, McConnell proposes to go Pontius Pilate and wash his hands ofspending, blaming Obama while doing nothing himself.

In a nutshell, the President would get to raise the debt ceiling three timesin the next year at several billion bucks a pop without making any spendingcuts unless two-thirds of both houses of Congress disagree. In his pressconference, McConnell says he would not give the President “unilateralauthority to make spending cuts on his own,” but this plan would allow thePresident to raise the debt ceiling pretty much automatically.

Can't speak for JDN in ingenious but Bloomberg tries to explain it:----------------McConnell’s plan would let the president increase the limit in three stages unless Congress disapproves by a two-thirds majority, while Obama would also be required to propose offsetting spending cuts. The spending reductions would be advisory, and the debt-ceiling increase would occur regardless of whether lawmakers enact the cuts, McConnell said.

Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, said the plan would allow Obama to raise the debt limit while putting the onus on him and congressional Democrats to cut spending.

At the same time, Republicans wouldn’t have to agree to tax increases. The proposal would force Democrats to cast multiple votes to raise the debt ceiling before the next election, while giving Republicans the chance to vote against that without risking a default. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-12/mcconnell-said-to-propose-three-stage-process-for-raising-u-s-debt-limit.html------------------(Doug continued) First of all there will be a lot of noise in the room while two sides position themselves for failure. The idea from McConnell is that this is not going to get done otherwise. R's have to choose now between tax increases- unacceptable, and default - unacceptable, or making imaginary cuts unilaterally that will never happen but be used forever against them. The McConnell idea continues the deficit for Obama's term but puts it all back on Dems to raise debt without R. support. All politics, no economics.

So-called default really means that Aug.1 or whenever d-day is, we get a de facto balanced budget exactly as proposed for the constitution without even taking that vote or sending it to the states. No additional borrowing means immediate zero deficit, with spending limited to revenues running at 18% of GDP exactly as written in the proposed amendment, but without the 5 year phase-in.

Too good to be true. The political and economic problems with that are that we need a balanced budget at full employment not at sputtering levels. It has to be combined with a pro-growth agenda putting us back on track or else it is all root canal and no pain killer.

Obama can't reform entitlements at all because his party will revolt, and it has to pass in the Senate. Republicans can't take vague spending cuts later because they don't happen. Neither side can afford real tax increases because they doom what is left of this economy, and they won't pass in the House.

Kent Conrad, Senate Budget Chair, want to close loopholes AND raise tax rates, worst of both worlds. Take more resources while worsening the disincentives to produce - and he is retiring in 2012. Try to negotiate with him!

I think we agreed (some of us) that driving out of this mess was going to be a two election cycle process, 2010-2012. We need to survive the last Obama year and make certain to win next year, House, Senate and Presidency, or live forever in decline (no intended exaggeration). Even then R's will lack the 60 votes in the senate and struggle to implement anything. Extending the debt limit with no change in budgeting is the status quo, but deeper to dig out from. The McConnell offer puts a requirement on Obama to propose cuts in exchange for new debt. Republicans can accept those cuts and send them back or tweak them and fight further.

Hopefully, Obama sees this as a successful PR move by McConnell covering the R asses against an unnecessary shutdown, and putting it back on him to get meaningful, immediate cuts now.

My only request is for Republicans to stop being afraid of speaking the truth. For example Senator Inhofe makes good points but then has to add:

"and I don’t mean this disrespectfully,"

Will other Republicans get a titanium spine like Bachman and just say it like it is? Why do they have to always temper their opinions with things like "I like the President personally" or "I think he is well meaning" or "a great American". He is not a nice guy. He is not honest and he is more about being a great *anti*- American, and he is *not* well meaning. He is destroying out country plain and simple. I wish Mark Levin could reach out to the rest of American and not just the choir. He says it like it is. Why won't her run for office?

****Inhofe lays long list of nation’s ills at Obama’s feet

BLAME GAMEU.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe: He said Obama is at fault for the U.S. debt problem. By RANDY KREHBIEL World Staff Writer Published: 8/24/2011 4:04 AM Last Modified: 8/24/2011 4:04 AM

BROKEN ARROW — President Barack Obama alone is to blame for the nation’s budget deficit – and just about everything else, U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe told the Broken Arrow Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday. “We now have a president, and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, who is destroying these very institutions that made America great,” Inhofe, R-Okla., said.

Inhofe went on to say the Obama administration has “disarmed America,” is solely responsible for the federal budget deficit, mostly responsible for the nation’s dependence on imported oil and suffocating business with regulations.

He also said Obama engineered the House Republicans’ ban on earmarks in order to give himself more control of the budget.

“When they came along with this moratorium, you have to let the president run everything,” Inhofe said. “They conceded that authority to the president of the United States, so that’s why the president was behind the whole earmark thing."

Inhofe said the earmark ban allowed the administration to block a new $10 million control tower scheduled for Tinker Air Force Base.

He said military spending, as a share of gross domestic product, has declined during the Obama administration and criticized unflattering descriptions of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where terror suspects are held, saying, “You know the biggest problem for prisoners when they get to Gitmo? Obesity."

Inhofe said the idea that prisoners have been tortured there was invented by Obama and others “to make you think something bad is happening in America — the same thing he does and others do when they go around talking about how bad America is."

Inhofe said the deficit is Obama’s fault because “it’s the president’s budget. Period. That’s the end of it."

He said the recent debtlimit agreement is a sham that does little or nothing to reduce overall spending. One solution, he continued, would be to repeal the health-care reform law, which he said is an example of “social engineering” designed to make Americans more dependent on the federal government.

Inhofe also cited extended unemployment benefits, saying he saw no reason for them in Oklahoma because the state has “virtually full employment."

Inhofe laid out a long list of regulatory steps he said would cost taxpayers and employers billions of dollars in taxes and lost productivity, and said the country could be “totally independent from the Middle East in a matter of weeks, not years,” if the administration allowed unfettered oil and gas development on public lands.

Noting that he will not be up for re-election until 2014, Inhofe said, “Don’t misunderstand, (nothing) I’m saying now is for political purposes."*****

"A top Republican in Washington dramatically altered his stance on protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street just one week after comparing the movement to “angry mobs”. Eric Cantor, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, told Fox News on Sunday that Republicans agreed there was “too much” income disparity in the country. “More important than my use of the word [‘mobs’] is that there is a growing frustration out there across the country and it is warranted. Too many people are out of work,” he said."

This is a FIRST from a top Republican spokeperson. A recognition of the wealth gap. This in my humble opinion is a good step. We must start hearing more recognition from the right about this. This IS what I have been hoping more of from the right. Simply speaking about opening up the tax spiggots and let the wealth poor in for the producers and those at the top and let it trickle down is NOT enough. I've said repeatedly that those independents and many others do not buy this argument. The middle class is becoming the lower class in this country. The rich are getting richer. The game is rigged to some extent at the top. Like to admit it or not that is fact. As I have said before Repubs ignore this altogether at their own peril. Even Buchanan rightly pointed out the growing disparity in wealth and the slow crushing burden on the middle and that neither the right nor the left has offered a decent answer for this. The right simply ignores it altogether - BIG mistake.

And again (I hope not ad nauseum) I say that as long as the right keeps ignoring this they will always be struggling to get the vote majority. Isn't this cleary demonstrated by the fact that Brock STILL has a real chance of winning again?

Like Crafty suggested the right can steal the Democratic thunder (at least some of it) by embracing some of the Wall Street protest anger. They may actually win over some of the independents.

So I am glad that Cantor (who I like) has changed his tune - or at least according to this article he may have.

Simplify the tax code. Get rid of loopholes that only the rich even know about. How about getting rid of off shore tax havens. Some estimates hold over 9 trillion off shore - more than all the combined holdings of all us banks are off shore in switzerland caman islands, mauritania and others.

Otherwise I admit I am not sure. I can think of things but I don't know which or any that would work. Humanity is just too corrupt.

Well, I'm pretty sure that's the only policy solution the left has for this issue.

I'm all for simplifying the tax code. As far as loopholes only the rich know about, it's not the rich, it's the legions of CPAs and tax attorneys the rich (like Warren Buffet) pay to use the loopholes for them. Those Accountants and Attorneys have lobbists that fight every attempt to simplify the US tax code.

As far as offshore tax havens, we've done everything possible to end them, without much success, but we have made things very difficult for Americans working outside the US. I think tax competition is a good thing. Rather than setting up walls to keep money in, we should attract that money back here by lower tax rates.

"Those Accountants and Attorneys have lobbists that fight every attempt to simplify the US tax code."

Lobbyists are another problem. They spend big money. And pols need big money for campaigns. They need big money to pay for the media complex. The need lobbyist slots to stack with their relatives and business partners so it seems.

Campaign finance reform was lambasted by the right. Certainly McCain's point had some ethical validity.

For lower and middle income earners to have the opportunity to earn more money if they want to.

Disparity tells us that people with high incomes make more money than people with lower incomes. We are missing something with that. I learn more when we compare some other variable such as that people who set an alarm and get up in the morning make more money than people who don't. Or people who have saved and invested in their earlier years make more investment income now than people who didn't.

Fact is that a typical person moves freely between at least 3 or 4 of the 5 quintiles of earners in the course of their lifetime.

The question IMO isn't disparity but opportunity. If 40% of young people are unemployed right now, our policies are choking off their momentum to work a couple of jobs, save and start of business of their own someday.

"Simplify the tax code. Get rid of loopholes" YES! And closing the loopholes means the marginal rates can be lower, and that would help investment, expansion and hiring get going again, helping those currently left out of the economy who don't want to be. Favorable conditions for economic growth will not cure disparity,but it does help everybody.

"Campaign finance reform was lambasted by the right. Certainly McCain's point had some ethical validity."

The rich and powerful always have access to the politicians. Those of us who are not can combine our money to ensure our voices are heard as well. Those speech restrictions serve to disenfranchise us while allowing the rich and powerful and the MSM to set the political agenda of the nation.

I have read serious analyses of McCain-Feingold (perhaps posted here in this forum somewhere ) which have persuaded me that despite the accompanying rhetoric, was structured to make it more difficult to challenge incumbents.

"McCain-Feingold...was structured to make it more difficult to challenge incumbents."

True even if by accident. Incumbents start with a big advantage, the powers of incumbency: briefing letters, press stories covering their work in Washington and their local visits, paid staff helping constituents, etc. Spending limits applied evenly to everyone lock in that advantage.

The way you limit money in politics is limit what influence is for sale. If the public were to not tolerate the special treatment of special groups in the tax code, in spending bills or in regulations, most of that kind of money would dry up quickly.

Scarborough who was once part of the Gingrich Republican revolution is a self serving establishment guy making lots of money now trying to seem moderate and conciliatory. Is this guy that stupid, bought and paid for, or does he just not get it?

Republicans like him have sold us all out. I was shocked and disgusted by his total mocking diatribe this AM on the MSNBC Democrat machine propaganda network. Instead of appauding Cain he mocks him. With Republicans like him we don't need enemies. What is his salary anyway? Is he doing that broad who sits next to him or what? They certainly appear to have something going between them. But I digress:

Here's the hook -- no one in this actors’ studio is qualified to be president, the author says. | AP Photo CloseBy JOE SCARBOROUGH | 10/17/11 4:11 PM EDT All the world is a stage and in this year’s GOP presidential race, it is a reality show soundstage cluttered with clownish characters auditioning for the role of commander in chief.

A bemused audience of political spectators and cable chatterers has been entertained this year by a fallen speaker, a pizza mogul, a wild-eyed ideologue, a billionaire developer and a hockey mom from Alaska.

Continue Reading Text Size- + reset Listen Latest on POLITICOPoll: New Obama low in N.H.8 things to avoid in the debateVoter: Barletta treats us like 'dogs'Wolf rips Norquist for Fannie Mae tieNew oil speculation limits draw fireVIDEO: POLITICO PlaybackPOLITICO 44Two of those actors have starred in actual reality shows, but — here’s the hook — no one in this actors’ studio is qualified to be president.

This train wreck of a reality show started the season with a sputtering governor’s resignation. That was followed by a blizzard of book deals, reality shows and FOX News contracts that kept the chattering classes transfixed. Never mind the fact that few mainstream political commentators ever bothered to mention to their audience that Sarah Palin was ill-equipped to handle this show’s lead role.

Palin’s presidential screen test was rudely interrupted by “Apprentice” star Donald Trump, who commanded center stage long enough to sneak a peek at President Obama’s birth certificate, all the while renegotiating a blockbuster deal with NBC.

Being the front-runner for the GOP nomination carried certain benefits, and for The Donald that advantage came in the form of leverage over NBC Entertainment.

As Trump left the political stage, the void was quickly filled by the tea party’s best supporting actress, Michele Bachmann — whose rapid rise and fall was a political rags-to-riches and back to rags story that few Hollywood producers would find believable. That is, unless they heard that unlikely pitch after working on Rick Perry’s presidential campaign.

Perry, who seemed to call for the hanging of Ben Bernanke along with the secession of Texas, saw his lead in the GOP field dissolve faster than a tax break for “Jersey Shore” in Chris Christie’s home state.

And speaking of that low-rent reality show, the Republican party’s answer to Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino found himself booted to the side of the stage after dumping an untold fortune on bling in a blue box. Tiffany’s favorite former speaker was also caught on camera roughing up enemies by comparing them to Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler. Like Sorrentiino, Newt Gingrich has proved himself to be every bit as rhetorically reckless as when the “Jersey Shore” star threatened to kick Snookie’s boyfriend in the head.

All of this leads us to Herman Cain, a man so woefully ill-prepared for the presidency that his lone economic adviser brags about being ignorant of economic theory with as much gusto as candidate Cain mocks those who would suggest he knows little about world politics.

“When they ask me, ‘Who is President of UBEKI-beki-beki-becki-stan, stan, I am going to say ‘Do you know?’”

The fact that Citizen Cain takes great pride in his ignorance of global affairs is understandably unnerving to American voters in this unstable age. But on the small stage on which Mr. Cain now finds himself, the Godfather’s Pizza CEO fits with these vapid times as much as James Dean did with his in the 1950s classic, “Rebel Without a Cause.” Sadly, Cain and his fellow cast members are little more than rebels without a clue. That reality is a dismal curtain call for the Republican party and the country it hopes to run.

Compared with the GOP’s field of reality stars, George W. Bush looks like Brando, Paul Ryan is as attractive as Robert Redford, and Chris Christie is Brad Pitt. So much for an audition process that leaves the audience, once again, aching for more.

A guest columnist for POLITICO, Joe Scarborough hosts “Morning Joe” on MSNBC and represented Florida’s 1st Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001.****

Congress finally ended decades of tax credits for ethanol in December, a small triumph for taxpayers. Now comes another test as the wind-power industry lobbies for a $7 billion renewal of its production tax credit.

The renewable energy tax credit—mostly for wind and solar power—started in 1992 as a "temporary" benefit for an infant industry. Twenty years later, the industry wants another four years on the dole, and Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico has introduced a national renewable-energy mandate so consumers will be required to buy wind and solar power no matter how high the cost.

The truth is that those giant wind turbines from Maine to California won't turn without burning through billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars. In 2010 the industry received some $5 billon in subsidies for nearly every stage of wind production.

The "1603 grant program" pays up to 30% of the construction costs for renewable energy plants (a subsidy that ended last year but which President Obama calls for reviving in his budget). Billions in Department of Energy grants and loan guarantees also finance the operating costs of these facilities. Wind producers then get the 2.2% tax credit for every kilowatt of electricity generated.

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The San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm in Whitewater, Calif..Because wind-powered electricity is so expensive, more than half of the 50 states have passed renewable energy mandates that require utilities to purchase wind and solar power—a de facto tax on utility bills. And don't forget subsidies to build transmission lines to deliver wind power to the electric grid.

What have taxpayers received for this multibillion-dollar "investment"? The latest Department of Energy figures indicate that wind and solar power accounted for a mere 1.5% of U.S. energy production in 2010. DOE estimates that by 2035 wind will provide a still trivial 3.9% of U.S. electricity.

Even that may be too optimistic because of the natural gas boom that has produced a happy supply shock and cut prices by more than half. Most economic models forecasting that renewable energy will become price competitive are based on predictions of natural gas prices at well above $6 per million cubic feet, more than twice the current cost.

The most dishonest claim is that wind and solar deserve to be wards of the state because the oil and gas industry has also received federal support. That's the $4 billion a year in tax breaks for oil and gas (which all manufacturers receive), but the oil and gas industry still pays tens of billions in federal taxes every year.

Wind and solar companies are net tax beneficiaries. Taxpayers would save billions of dollars if wind and solar produced no energy at all. A July 2011 Energy Department study found that oil, natural gas and coal received an average of 64 cents of subsidy per megawatt hour in 2010. Wind power received nearly 100 times more, or $56.29 per megawatt hour.

Most Congressional Democrats will back anything with the green label. But Republican support for big wind is a pure corporate welfare play that violates free-market principles. Last week six Republican Senators—John Boozman of Arkansas, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Charles Grassley of Iowa, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Jerry Moran of Kansas and John Thune of South Dakota—signed a letter urging their colleagues to extend the production tax credit.

"It is clear that the wind industry currently requires tax incentives" and that continuing that federal aid can help the industry "move towards a market-based system," said the letter. What's the "market-based" timetable—100 years? In the House 18 Republicans have joined the 70-Member wind pork caucus. Someone should remind them that in 2008 and 2010 the wind lobby gave 71% of its PAC money to Democrats.

Here's a better idea. Kill all energy subsidies—renewable and nonrenewable, starting with the wind tax credit, and use the savings to shave two or three percentage points off America's corporate income tax. Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo has a bill to do so. This would do more to create jobs than attempting to pick energy winners and losers. Mandating that American families and businesses use expensive electricity doesn't create jobs. It destroys them

In the age of trillion-dollar annual deficits, Americans are looking for some sign—any sign—that Washington is serious about trimming the size of government. So here's some advice for House Republicans: Vote against the reauthorization and expansion of the Export-Import Bank on Wednesday.

The House leadership wants to increase the bank's exposure cap to $140 billion by 2014 from $100 billion today, with a few minor reforms attached to make the package politically saleable. In a statement Friday, Speaker John Boehner said the bipartisan deal—struck by Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer—is "necessary to promote American exports and remove a threat to the creation of American jobs."

That's job creation, French-style. The Ex-Im Bank extends taxpayer-backed loans, loan guarantees and insurance to the clients of some of America's largest corporations, all of which have access to private financing. Slightly less than half of the business goes to help a single company, Boeing. Ex-Im also must by law extend 20% of its financing to small businesses. So much for assessing risks and rewards as the market dictates.

It's true that Ex-Im has had bipartisan support for years. President Obama expanded Ex-Im to promote his export agenda. Republicans justified the bank during the Cold War as helping America's national security and more recently as a boon to business, which likes taxpayer-backed, cheap financing, thank you very much. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers are vocal supporters of the Cantor-Hoyer deal.

The GOP House leadership no doubt finds it hard to buck such a united business front, especially when Democrats are looking for an issue to appear more business-friendly after the hostility of the Pelosi Congress. Government guarantees are one policy that Democrats can always get behind.

But Republicans were not elected in 2010 on a message of business subsidies as usual. They were elected on a platform of government reform and fiscal restraint. They are trying to maintain that image by claiming that they are "reforming" Ex-Im—for example, by tying the increase in lending to the bank's overall default rate and requiring the Government Accountability Office to review Ex-Im's business plan and risk management. But this is eyewash compared to the increase in Ex-Im exposure, and the penalty for breaking the default cap isn't harsh.

The House is considering the Ex-Im bill under suspension rules, which requires two-thirds approval for passage. This means that on a normal voting day around 135 Republicans could defeat it.

No one is going to vote out a Representative for opposing subsidies for clients of General Electric. But voters and financial markets might notice and applaud that Republicans meant what they said about making hard choices. The essential tasks of a bankrupt federal government should not include subsidies for the biggest corporations.

A version of this article appeared May 8, 2012, on page A12 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Republicans and Big Business

So why the disconnect between Obama’s image as a big spender and the reality of how much federal spending has actually grown?

First, Obama’s record on debt is a lot less flattering than is his record on federal government spending. During the same time that spending is poised to be increasing by 1.4 percent per year under Obama, the debt will be increasing by 14.6 percent per year. The reason? Year by year, federal revenues haven’t been keeping up with spending, due to the struggling national economy (which has held back tax revenues) and a continuation of tax cuts. And each year there’s an annual deficit, the national debt grows.

Second, federal spending under Obama is higher as a share of gross domestic product than it has been in most of the previous 60 years. That, too is because of the economy, which has simultaneously slowed the growth of GDP and boosted government spending for programs such as food stamps and Medicaid.

Third, the aging of the baby boomers has driven a rise in entitlement spending that is masking cuts Obama and the GOP Congress have made, and have promised to make, in discretionary spending. Using outlays as the unit of measurement, as Nutting and the Facebook post have done, means focusing on money already spent. It does not take into account future spending that’s been committed to but not yet carried out.

And finally, many Americans associate Obama with the high-profile legislative activities of his first year or two, when initiatives such as the stimulus sent spending upward the fastest. Since then, spending has slowed, thanks in part to spending cuts pushed by congressional Republicans.

Which brings us to another important issue: The president is not all-powerful, so his record on spending was accomplished in collaboration with congressional Republicans.

It is a George Orwell world where you can take trillions in temporary, one time, emergency spending, make it all permanent, add another couple of percent on top of it, then have a fact check operation verify historic spending restraint! The benchmark is to compare Obama administration spending, half under Republican congress, with the surge in spending that he advanced as a de facto leader of the Senate.

That didn't happen under his watch?

"Barack Obama has lowest spending record of any recent president" "Mostly True"

By the exact same logic, this has been the coldest decade in recorded temperature history.

The math happened to be discussed on the roundtable of FOX's "Special Report w Brett Baier" (my idea of an excellent news program by the way) by Steve Hayes, Juan Williams, and Charles Krauthammer (whom I hold in high regard). CK's assessment was something along the line of "one of the all time whoppers". SH concurred and JM did not contest this.

Working from memory the gist of it is that the baseline was utterly spurious. It included one time spending such as the spending for the Iraq Surge, TARP 1, (then T-2, T-3, etc )

"It included one time spending such as the spending for the Iraq Surge, TARP 1, "

Yes. They not only include the emergency spending of Fall 2008 that 100% as much authorized by Obama as much as by Bush and McCain, they also include from inauguration 2009 until the end of the 'Bush' fiscal year on Sept 30, 2009. During that time he had the Executive Branch, majorities in the House and Senate and a filibuster proof 60th vote during part of it. What control could they possibly had over spending?

I am so sick of these fact check sites acting like they are one bit more accurate than any other pundit or blog.

It’s been breaking news all over MSNBC, liberal blogs, newspapers and even The Wall Street Journal: “Federal spending under Obama at historic lows … It’s clear that Obama has been the most fiscally moderate president we’ve had in 60 years.” There’s even a chart!

I’ll pause here to give you a moment to mop up the coffee on your keyboard. Good? OK, moving on …

This shocker led to around-the-clock smirk fests on MSNBC. As with all bogus social science from the left, liberals hide the numbers and proclaim: It’s “science”! This is black and white, inarguable, and why do Republicans refuse to believe facts?

Ed Schultz claimed the chart exposed “the big myth” about Obama’s spending: “This chart — the truth — very clearly shows the truth undoubtedly.” And the truth was, the “growth in spending under President Obama is the slowest out of the last five presidents.”

Note that Schultz also said that the “part of the chart representing President Obama’s term includes a stimulus package, too.” As we shall see, that is a big, fat lie.

On her show, Rachel Maddow proclaimed: “Factually speaking, spending has leveled off under President Obama. Spending is not skyrocketing under President Obama. Spending is flattening out under President Obama.”

In response, three writers from “The Daily Show” said, “We’ll never top that line,” and quit.

Inasmuch as this is obviously preposterous, I checked with John Lott, one of the nation’s premier economists and author of the magnificent new book with Grover Norquist: Debacle: Obama’s War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future.

It turns out Rex Nutting, author of the phony Marketwatch chart, attributes all spending during Obama’s entire first year, up to Oct. 1, to President Bush.

That’s not a joke.

That means, for example, the $825 billion stimulus bill, proposed, lobbied for, signed and spent by Obama, goes in … Bush’s column. (And if we attribute all of Bush’s spending for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and No Child Left Behind to William Howard Taft, Bush didn’t spend much either.)

Nutting’s “analysis” is so dishonest, even The New York Times has ignored it. He includes only the $140 billion of stimulus money spent after Oct. 1, 2009, as Obama’s spending. And he’s testy about that, grudgingly admitting that Obama “is responsible (along with the Congress) for about $140 billion in extra spending in the 2009 fiscal year from the stimulus bill.”

Nutting acts as if it’s the height of magnanimity to “attribute that $140 billion in stimulus to Obama and not to Bush …”

On what possible theory would that be Bush’s spending? Hey — we just found out that Obamacare’s going to cost triple the estimate. Let’s blame it on Calvin Coolidge!

Nutting’s “and not to Bush” line is just a sleight of hand. He’s hoping you won’t notice that he said “$140 billion” and not “$825 billion,” and will be fooled into thinking that he’s counting the entire stimulus bill as Obama’s spending. (He fooled Ed Schultz!)

The theory is that a new president is stuck with the budget of his predecessor, so the entire 2009 fiscal year should be attributed to Bush.

But Obama didn’t come in and live with the budget Bush had approved. He immediately signed off on enormous spending programs that had been specifically rejected by Bush. This included a $410 billion spending bill that Bush had refused to sign before he left office. Obama signed it on March 10, 2009. Bush had been chopping brush in Texas for two months at that point. Marketwatch’s Nutting says that’s Bush’s spending.

Obama also spent the second half of the Troubled Asset Relief Fund (TARP). These were discretionary funds meant to prevent a market meltdown after Lehman Brothers collapsed. By the end of 2008, it was clear the panic had passed, and Bush announced that he wouldn’t need to spend the second half of the TARP money.

But on Jan. 12, 2009, Obama asked Bush to release the remaining TARP funds for Obama to spend as soon as he took office. By Oct. 1, Obama had spent another $200 billion in TARP money. That, too, gets credited to Bush, according to the creative accounting of Rex Nutting.

There are other spending bills that Obama signed in the first quarter of his presidency, bills that would be considered massive under any other president — such as the $40 billion child health care bill, which extended coverage to immigrants as well as millions of additional Americans. These, too, are called Bush’s spending.

Frustrated that he can’t shift all of Obama’s spending to Bush, Nutting also lowballs the spending estimates during the later Obama years. For example, although he claims to be using the White House’s numbers, the White House’s estimate for 2012 spending is $3.795 trillion. Nutting helpfully knocks that down to $3.63 trillion.

But all those errors pale in comparison to Nutting’s counting Obama’s nine-month spending binge as Bush’s spending.

If liberals will attribute Obama’s trillion-dollar stimulus bill to Bush, what won’t they do?

Analogy would be if Romney's teleprompter said 'Amercia' and he pronounced it "a-mer-see-a".

Republicans are used to being held to a double standard on areas they are purported to be strong on, such as moral behaviors. I don't a lot of sympathy for Mark Foley and the young pages or the Idaho Senator soliciting in the MSP men's room. Out they go often taking the party and the principle with them.

"give Obama the same break"

Obama has been held out to us as the smartest guy to set foot in the oval office, Rhodes scholar Clinton notwithstanding. I believe it was JDN that pointed out in 2008 that McCain finished last in his naval academy class meaning that intelligence matters and that we will point out all evidence to the contrary. (McCain knows how to pronounce 'corpsman'.) Obama still chooses to not let us know how he got where he got, whether it was based on merit or on something else. I wonder how many times Bush was ridiculed for saying nuc-yular or other Bushisms. When people see evidence that this emperor has no clothes and the msm take a pass on it, it is going to be circulated around the other places where people point things out to each other.

His teleprompter writer needs to write Corpsman as core-man to cover his ignorance and lifetime disinterest in all things military. His handlers who proofread his speeches are so careful and thorough in honoring great American socialists but could give a rat's ass about offending our allies. They should be replaced with better ones if he is interested in a second term. Assuming Pres. Obama knows better, it tells me he is too bored with his own speeches to listen carefully while he delivers them.

Speaking of gaffes, his first real Presidential decision was to choose Joe Biden, a clean and articulate Senator, as the second smartest person in the land, assuming smarts are paramount. His governing philosophy from Obamacare to Solyindra to carbon tax to cash for clunkers is that the smart people in Washington know better than you what is best for you. I not only don't want to be ruled by people smarter than me but I also stubbornly deny that they in fact are.

Mitch McConnell joined in with Rand. Reince Preibus (sp?) head of RNC says he started the stand with rand tweating. All the big shows, Beck, Rush, Hannity had Rand on. Karl Rove on the defensive has celebrated the tea party victories, just not the losses. McCain and Graham are not party establishment - they made careers out of bucking the party, not joining it. I'm not sure there is a 'pub' establishment anymore. If there is it is run by Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and now Ted Cruz. Very fluid situation. More accurately it is run from the ground up represented by some these people and others.

Pat Caddell, the Fox News Contributor and Democrat pollster who engineered Jimmy Carter’s 1976 Presidential victory, blew the lid off CPAC on Thursday with a blistering attack on "racketeering" Republican consultants who play wealthy donors like "marks."

"I blame the donors who allow themselves to be played for marks. I blame the people in the grassroots for allowing themselves to be played for suckers....It's time to stop being marks. It's time to stop being suckers. It’s time for you people to get real," he told the audience that included two top Republican consultants.

Caddell stole the show as a panelist in the breakout session titled "Should We Shoot All the Consultants Now?" He spoke with a fire and passion that electrified the room. When the session began the large room was half filled, but as word spread of the fireworks going on inside, the audience streamed in. By the end, it was standing room only.

Breitbart News spoke with Caddell prior to his talk, and he promised he would deliver a "brutal critique" of the Republican establishment and its political consulting class. He did not disappoint, pulling no punches with an unyielding evisceration of a small group of Republican consultants, the Romney campaign, the Republican National Committee, and Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS Super PAC.

"When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the 'fantastic' get-out-the-vote program...some of this borders on RICO [the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] violations," Caddell told the crowd. "It's all self dealing going on. I think it works on the RICO thing. They’re in the business of lining their pockets."

"The Republican Party," Caddell continued, "is in the grips of what I call the CLEC--the consultant, lobbyist, and establishment complex." Caddell described CLEC as a self serving interconnected network of individuals and organizations interested in preserving their own power far more than they're interested in winning elections.

"Just follow the money," Caddell told a rapt audience. "It’s all there in the newspaper. The way it works is this--ever since we centralized politics in Washington, the House campaign committee and the Senate campaign committee, they decide who they think should run. You hire these people on the accredited list [they say to candidates] otherwise we won't give you money. You hire my friend or else."

Financial corruption is a key component of the current process, according to Caddell. "There's money passing under the table on both parties. Don’t kid yourself...If you can’t see racketeering in front of you, God save you."

As a Democrat, Caddell said he could tell the truth about the failings of the Republicans 2012 campaign efforts since "I have no interest in the Republican Party." He compared Republicans unfavorably to Democrats."In my party we play to win. We play for life and death. You people play for a different kind of agenda...Your party has no problem playing the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globetrotters."

Caddell left no doubt he is not an admirer of Mitt Romney's campaign management skills. He called Romney "the worst executive I've seen" when it comes to leading a political campaign. Romney's failure to attack Obama's Benghazi debacle during the foreign policy debate was "cravenness" that came about because his consultants told him "we don’t want to look warlike."

Caddell also said Romney failed to back his campaign with his own money when it was most needed. "My question for Romney is, you spent $45 million [of your own money] in your 2008 campaign where you didn't have a chance. Why didn't you give your campaign a loan in the spring instead of letting Obama define you?"

Romney, Caddell said, was not on top of his game when he failed to anticipate attacks based on his business career. "You didn't know Bain was coming? Ted Kennedy used it against you." Romney lost to Ted Kennedy in the 1994 Senate election in Massachusetts.

Caddell was equally caustic in his evaluation of the Republican consultants who managed Romney's campaign. "Of course this election could have been won. It should have been won," he said. "The Romney campaign was the worst campaign in my lifetime except for ninety minutes [in the first debate] thanks to Barack Obama."

"There was a failure of strategy, a failure of tactics, a massive failure of messaging. Most of all there was a total failure of imagination." Caddell singled out Stuart Stevens, a key figure in Romney's campaign, in a particularly withering critique. "Stevens had as much business running a campaign as I do sprouting wings and flying out of this room," he said to an audience that applauded.

Caddell said that Romney inexplicably allowed Obama to define him without fighting back. If Obama had a 50% favorable rating on election day, he had an 80% chance of winning. If he had a 45% favorable rating on election day, he had a 90% chance of losing. On election day, Obama's favorable rating was 51% because, Caddell said, "Republicans failed to hold him down."

"A majority of the people wanted to repeal Obamacare, [an issue that] the Republican Party abandoned," Caddell noted. He added that "on the issue of bigger or smaller government, one-third of the people who want smaller government voted for Obama."

Caddell criticized the RNC's planned announcement on Monday of the RNC's Growth and Opportunity Project report, which he dismissed as "this whitewash...being produced at the RNC. You can not have the people who failed responsible for finding the solution."

Caddell predicted that the Republican Party, unless it became the anti-establishment, anti-Washington party, would become extinct, like the 19th century Whig Party. "These people [in the consulting-lobbying-establishment complex] are doing business for themselves. They are a part of the Washington establishment. These people don’t want to have change."

The 2010 takeover of Congress by the Republicans, Caddell said, "was not engineered by the Washington Republican establishment. They [the establishment] then took that victory and threw it away."

Caddell called Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) "the Ambrose Burnside of American politics." Burnside was the commander of the Union's Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. He was dismissed by Lincoln for his inability to press his advantage against the enemy, his plodding and unimaginative strategies, and his inability to focus resources on the tactics needed for victory.

Caddell cautioned Republicans not to read too much in the 2012 results where they maintained control of the House of Representatives. "You won the House [in 2012] because of the reapportionment that came after the 2010 [Tea Party] victories," he said. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), elected in 2010, and Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), elected in 2012, had to fight this establishment at every step in the process and "claw their way" to electoral success, Caddell said.

When an audience member asked Caddell why he, a Democrat, was offering Republicans advice that would help them beat his own party, his response was met with huge applause. "I'm not a fan of Barack Obama," Caddell said. "My first allegiance is to my country. I have paid a huge price, and when I watch you people screwing up I'm offended."

Nancy Smith, a grassroots activist who co-founded an independent Virginia group that focused on door-to-door canvassing and get-out-the-vote in the 2012 election, was effusive in her praise of Caddell's critique. "This talk by Caddell is what this entire conference should be about."

The panel was moderated by Matt Schlapp, a principal at Cove Strategies, a Republican political consulting firm. In addition to Caddell, the panel included Jeff Roe, the founder of Axiom Strategies, also a Republican political consulting firm, Morton Blackwell, a Republican National Committeeman from Virginia and founder of the Leadership Institute, and Brian Baker, founder of a Super PAC.

While the civil war among Republicans was heating up, I had the opportunity to see conservative Phyllis Schlafly speak last week. At age 89 she was bursting with energy. Her talk included a few important points of advice:

1) Work within the two party system. As Rumsfeld said, you fight with the army you have, not the one you wish you had. Get involved in the caucuses and primaries and choosing the candidates, but this is a two-party system.

2) The calls today from conservatives for a constitutional convention are naive. You will attract all the people who oppose the constitution that we have. Our group today is not smarter than the Founders, and we won't be able to pass anything better than they did.

3) A lot of conservatives are discouraged right now, but this is no time to give up!

We keep hearing from establishment Republicans that Cruz has "damaged the Republican brand".I submit the question:What brand?The party no longer represents us.What is the message besides "low taxes"?The establishment Republicans sound more and more like Democrats.I submit the response that there is no "brand".And that is what the Tea Party is about.

I share all your frustration, anger, disappointment, etc and then some! To answer you literally, Republican is a brand that is still winning half of the elections, holding the House, a 30-20 lead in Governorships, a majority of state legislatures, well over the 40 Senator threshold, threatening (for a 3rd try) to take back that majority. That is with no leader, clarity or message. Also should have won the Presidency in 2012.

At the start of the tea party movement I thought the uniting message was cut spending first. Reduce the size and scope of government, especially federal government. Lower tax rates along with a booming private sector can follow. But this was in reaction to Obamacare passage in particular, the greatest expansion of government power in this country ever.

Failing to take the Senate, failing to take back the Presidency, failing to get these expansions struck down in the Court, and failing to defund it, all lead us to starting over, carrying all this damage and with a dispirited base. We are fighting to get back to where we were, which was in a faltering economy with a huge government and even more people not contributing.

We actually need to both defeat the establishment Republicans and unite with them, a daunting proposition.

Each state, house district etc., IMO, needs to choose the most conservative candidate - that can win in that state or district. Same for the Presidency. They need to be focused and disciplined, not make the mistakes that sank others recently. Get a message and stay on message; this is not about rape abortions, secession, or shooting our way out of this mess.

We need a vision and some visionaries. A shining city on a hill. Tell people the positive things about a realistic, America-2014 and beyond vision. Move past the liberal terminology and definitions of the issues. As Newt once did, ask questions that poll well and favor our side. Would you like more government control over your life or more personal freedom and economic opportunity? Would you like to stop others from succeeding or improve your own lot on life? Do you like jobs, businesses, schools, health care, and everything else controlled mainly by Washington or closer to home? Do you think public sector people should have far bigger salaries, pensions, benefits and shorter work days than the private sector people who support them or be in line with the rest of the economy?

At some point there are demographic groups such as unemployed young people who will begin to see that the move toward Stalinism isn't helping them. Hope and change meant sit still and demand things. These things tend to swing like a pendulum. At some point people open up to a different message. But we didn't made good use of the turns we had to govern and we haven't presented a coherent alternative while out of power, so we are now paying that price.